For clergy, lost faith can lead to lost family, jobs

As the American Atheists convention here wound down in March, a woman with short dark hair and a dark suit took the stage.

Standing under the projection of a large capital “A,” she told the crowd of several hundred that she was a pastor who, for the last several months, had been questioning her beliefs online under the pseudonym “Lynn.”

Then she took a deep breath and said, “My name is Teresa. And I am an atheist.” As the room exploded with cheers, Teresa MacBain wiped away tears.

MacBain, 44, is the latest “graduate” of The Clergy Project, an online support network for pastors who, like her, have lost their faith and found atheism.

The goal of the project is not to pull pastors from the pulpit, but to provide those who have already lost their faith with a safe place to anonymously discuss what comes next. The hope is they will, like MacBain, eventually feel strong enough to put their families, friends and careers on the line and announce their atheism.

“When you leave the ministry, you can lose all of that,” said Dan Barker, a former minister, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and a founder of The Clergy Project. “You have to ask yourself, ‘Who am I now?’ ... The Clergy Project is a place where their self-respect is restored.”

Barker traces the origin of the project to conversations with struggling pastors and a meeting with Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and prominent atheist. All felt the need for a place where active clergy could make the transition from Sunday mornings in the pulpit to Sunday mornings in bed.

That need was given new urgency in 2010 when Daniel Dennett, a Tufts University professor and another prominent atheist, and Linda LaScola, a qualitative researcher, published an article outlining their work with five active clergy ― all Protestant males ― whose faith had crumbled.

These men, they found, had much in common ― all went into ministry to help people, all began questioning their seminary training, and all let go of their faith gradually. And all expressed confusion and frustration about how to live and work as atheists.

“They have early doubts that they do not act on,” LaScola said after the convention. “Then they keep quiet. They don’t tell their colleagues. It is a slow process from belief to lack of belief.”

The 2010 study garnered a lot of attention among atheists, and The Clergy Project was launched in March 2011 with the help and support of FFRF and Dawkins’ foundation.

Today, Barker says the project has about 200 online members, including active and former clergy from Protestant, Catholic, evangelical and Pentecostal backgrounds. There are also a couple of rabbis and a lone imam. All choose pseudonyms and share only as much as they feel comfortable with each other.

Mike Aus, 48, pastor of a Houston Lutheran congregation of 150 people, found The Clergy Project last year after years of solitary doubt. The day before MacBain’s appearance at the convention, he announced his atheism on MSNBC’s “Up With Chris Hayes.”

After addressing the convention ― which also greeted him enthusiastically ― he said he felt like a burden had been lifted upon connecting with The Clergy Project.

“The most important thing to me was knowing I wasn’t alone,” he said. “It was that fundamental sense of community with people who were experiencing the same things I was. It let me know it was not the end of the road, that there was life after this calling.”

MacBain, too, said her doubts started years ago. When she came to the Maryland convention, she was pastor of a 200-member Methodist church in Tallahassee, Fla. She decided to go public, she said, because she could not go on.

“When I stepped up there, I knew I was finished,” she said later. “I could only live so long doing a double life. I think any person who has any integrity, it eats away at your soul ― or lack of soul.”

The cost was high ― something MacBain realized fully only after returning home. Some friends cut her off, and some family members said she is unwelcome in their homes. She received hate mail and became afraid to leave the house alone.

But emotions run high in both directions. MacBain’s congregation apparently felt so blindsided that they locked her out of the church, she said. Her husband, a police officer, had to go in and pick up her things, which were already packed, she said.

Aus’ congregation, unaware of his change of heart until learning about it on television ― on Palm Sunday, no less ― decided to disband. Their final service was Easter Sunday.

“There was anger, yes,” said Joe Vingle, a member of Aus’ Texas church. “Some people had been with Mike for 20 years or longer. Those were the ones that were really hurt. They are feeling that everything they were taught by him is a lie.”

But Vingle said there was also understanding. “He is still a friend and I am interested in seeing where this takes him,” he said.

In a way, the convention was also a coming out for The Clergy Project. A day later, project leaders met to explore new services they might provide for pastors ― short-term loans, employment assistance and scholarships.

And they appointed a new executive director ― MacBain.

“As these clergy come out they are not just thrown to the wolves,” she said. “They can find resources that will help them take the next step.”

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I love my atheist, agnostic and believing friends as I know God does, as revealed in Christ. The proof of acceptance is in the Gospels. Good luck, best regards and the Peace of Christ to those who are so judgmental.

by JONATHAN BARKER, D.Min.

August 10, 2012

Tough break, Anon. But this is the Presbyterian Church. The only army that shoots its own wounded. Onward, Christian Soldiers! If you can't keep up, too bad.

by Tony

May 27, 2012

My faith struggles really began after I suffered a severe debilitating illness. At no time did I or my family receiv e any sort of pastoral care or concern. After two years, I am still in pain and wondering why my presbytery deserted us in our time of need. No wonder clergy leave this denomination for another.

by Anon

May 24, 2012

I'm sorry these pastors lost their faith in God. I'm sorry that they were harshly treated by those they left. I'm a Presbyterian pastor in California in a very challenging environment - the San Francisco Bay Area. I doubt and am tempted from time to leave the faith but I stay in. I'm involved in current intellectual debates, embrace science and religion, and enjoy a rich cultural life outside the church and integrate it all within my faith in God, through Jesus Christ, inspired by the Holy Spirit. I have meaning and community in and with the amazing people I serve and through faith and interfaith communities I encounter. I know the kindness, love and compassion of my faith and in those who embrace it. I’m concerned about fundamentalist expressions in all religions and narrow ideologies and destructive thinking of those who do and don’t embrace religion. It’s a free world (at least we are free) and we make our choices for better or ill. In my choice, I am loved and empowered and I do not sacrifice my mind in the process. Again, I'm sorry these pastors lost their faith in God. Can I celebrate their new life? Does it matter?

by Cornel

May 22, 2012

I can't even begin to count the ways in which this article repulses my very being. Where is the follow-through to assure such disheartened clergy who have gone to this extreme, that God still loves them and will bring them through this "valley of death." Is there no longer eternal security in our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ? Is going to the extreme of casting aside one's belief and faith and denying there is no God the "unpardonable sin"? No remedy for losing faith and trust can be found in a zillion athiest clubs -- only in confession and reconciliation with our one true God.

by Larry Christian

May 22, 2012

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